Remembering the River
by the Raven of Roses
Summary: We all lose things in life, but memories should never be among them. Chihiro knows something's missing. But will she remember in time to save it?
1. Six Years

1-25-06

_I spent so long staring back through that tunnel in the forest. I kept looking for a sign of light through the darkness. But nothing came, and I had to leave again. I had to start over again. It seemed like I could have stayed there with you, but I chose to leave instead. And now I sit in my new home, a third home in my mind, and I have nothing to do but remember._

Chihiro closed her diary and leaned back against the window frame. She sighed, pausing a moment before she took in another breath of humid summer air. Six years. Six years had passed since Chihiro set foot in the realm of spirits. And still, nothing, no word of the dragon-boy or the bathhouse of the spirits.

Chihiro closed the window and changed into a nightshirt. She had school the next day, and anyway, there wasn't much else for her to do tonight. She'd already said her evening prayers, done her homework, and written in her diary. A lengthy letter to the boy she loved. All there was left to do was go to sleep and see what tomorrow may bring.

Chihiro was asleep before her head hit the pillow. Days of insomnia finally grinded to a halt, and though she didn't remember, she had a quite extraordinary dream.

_I'm sorry, Chihiro. You'll have to wait a little longer_, came a voice in her head. _I promise I'll come back. Don't give up yet. Please wait for me…_

Flying. Falling. Spinning nothingness beneath her feet—or was it above? A dove plummeting past, trailing a thread of scarlet blood. Impact, but no pain. Plunging through the fabric of one reality and breaking through into another. Stolen breath, but renewed life. Such was the dream of Chihiro, the same one she'd been having for weeks and could never quite remember. Some fragment left over, perhaps, from her days in the realm of spirits.

She awakened with a start, scraps of her dream falling away from her mind. By the time she was fully conscious, nothing remained but the sensation of falling.

_:Dream 1:_

"Look. It's Chihiro."

"What's with her hair? She's always wearing it in that stupid rubber band."

"Don't touch her! She might give you a disease."

Chihiro hugged her books tightly and kept walking. She tried to close her ears to the taunts and whispers, but little malicious things kept getting past her guard. Finally, she arrived at the classroom, and she ducked in, shielding herself with the door.

_I hate Biology,_ she thought to herself, sighing. _I just hope we're not going to be—_

"Class," called the teacher when the bell had rung, "I hope you all remembered that today we'd be dissecting pigs in class."

Chihiro's blood ran cold. Her face must have gotten very pale, because the teacher suddenly asked her if she was alright. Chihiro stood up, grabbed her books, and ran out of the room.

The teacher found her half an hour later in a darkened corner near the cafeteria, quietly crying to herself. She refused to explain why it was that she didn't like the idea of dissecting a pig. Her teacher was forced to let her sit out the class.

She was fine by the time class was over. People looked at her strangely, the girl with a dreamy smile on her face. They avoided her. Something was odd about her, and everyone knew it. Something in the way she walked, the way her mind always seemed to be somewhere else. It was foreign to them, and like most things unknown, they feared and shunned it. Such is the nature of humans.

Chihiro wandered through the day, seemingly oblivious to the stares and whispers. Must not break down. It would only humor them. Her lace façade kept them away, and she liked it that way.

Finally, the last bell rang, and Chihiro boarded the train home.

A steady drizzle started up, and Chihiro trudged through the streets in an even worse mood than usual. Her mother looked up from her cooking as Chihiro slammed the door behind her and fled to her room.

Dreams. Whispers of something lost long ago. Chihiro absent-mindedly touched the shimmering threads around her hair, struggling to remember. Tears started in her eyes, and she slammed a fist into her pillow. Something was missing, she knew it. And that made the loss all the more terrible.

a/n: ello, again. thought id try something slightly different this time around. chihiro is losing her grip as well as her precious memories of the spirit realm. poor dear. this one has been awhile in coming, but i think im ready to post the first chapter. hope you enjoyed it, and please review. hopefully the next chappie will be up in about a week. or sooner. i dunno. but i better go now. >. homework. take care, mes amis!

-raven, your friendly neptunian pyro


	2. Daydreams

_:Dream 2:_

_River. Rushing current. Falling deeper into the bone-chilling cold. Lungs filling with water, and choking to claw to the surface. Just before her lungs could hold out no longer, Chihiro woke._

"What is wrong with me?" she gasped, clutching her chest.

She started when drops of salty water began to hit her hands. She'd been crying. Not good. Desperately, Chihiro struggled to remember what had made her cry, but the images slipped away from her like the very tears that poured from her eyes.

She glanced at the clock. 6am. Sighing, she got up and stretched. Not much point in sleeping when she had to get to school in another hour and ah half.

Chihiro dressed numbly, fumbling with the buttons on her shirt. She laughed in spite of herself and wiped away the remaining tears before opening her bedroom door.

Breakfast left a sour taste in Chihiro's mouth. She retreated to her room again, opening up her diary. By chance, it opened to her last entry.

_"I have nothing to do but remember."_

"Remember what?" she sighed, flipping to the next page.

_I'm missing something here. My diary from six years ago is filled with stories too strange to believe. I think I might have had a little too much imagination when I was little. _

_But something in them seems to make sense. I know just yesterday I knew something profound, something incredible. But with sleep, it has slipped away. _

_I remember a boy. I met him in the amusement park when I first moved here. His name was Haku—no, it was Kohaku. Like that old river. I don't remember seeing his parents there. Mine just ate like pigs and had to pay 10000 yen for it. _

_I wanted to talk to him some more, but my parents made me leave. He promised to meet up with me soon. But six years have passed so far, and I think he's forgotten about me by now. _

_That's not it, though. I know something else happened. If only I could remember…_

Chihiro laughed again and closed her diary. She was being silly, and she knew it. She was probably only trying to remember some dream, anyway.

A glance at the clock told her that it was time to go. Chihiro grabbed her school bag and sprinted downstairs.

_:Dream 3:_

_I'm coming, Chihiro. Please don't forget me. _

"Chihiro?"

Chihiro jumped, knocking her textbook off of her desk. She blushed furiously, realizing that classes had changed already. The girl next to her pointed to her history book, and Chihiro dug in her bag for her own.

"I hope we didn't interrupt your little daydream," snapped the teacher.

"N-no, of course not," she mumbled. "I'm very sorry, Sensei."

"We're on page 232."

Chihiro flipped open her book and sank down in her seat, trying not to let everyone see her. As it was, students in her class whispered amongst themselves, giggling at their spiteful jokes. The teacher quieted them down and went on with the lesson, much to Chihiro's relief.

Chihiro found herself looking out the window, taking in the impossibly blue sky. Suddenly, a flash of silvery white glittered in the distance, fluttering upwards like a leaf in the wind. Chihiro struggled to make out its shape, but the flash was gone before she could see it properly.

"Chihiro!"

"Sorry!" Chihiro snapped back to the lesson, causing another outburst of whispers and giggles from the class.

_Silvery white…_ she thought, chewing absent-mindedly on the end of her pencil. _Where have I seen that before? _

A/N: go figure. i updated on the same day. ;; anyway, i just thought id get that out of the way before i switch gears with the POV on this fic. the next however-many-chapters will consist of diary entries from chihiro. it was getting too weird to write about her at skool, and i think this will help get the story moving along.

chihiro is losing her memory. at the beginning of the first chappie, she knew most of what had happened to her. by now, she's only remembering meeting haku at an amusement park. sorry for the sudden forgetting thing. ill smooth everything out later. ;; anyway, enjoy, mes amis.

-raven


	3. Diary

_Dream 4:_

Dear diary:

I think I'm going crazy a little. I'm looking at my last entry. I didn't think Dad had to pay that much for the food he and Mom ate.

I saw this silvery thing in the sky during school. I wonder if somebody lost a kite… -3/3

Dear Diary:

I saw that silvery thing again. I don't think it's a kite. It looks more like a snake. Maybe it's the streamers from some car dealership near here. -3/4

Dear Diary:

Mom and Dad didn't eat that much food at the amusement park. And anyway, it was shut down, I think. Maybe the groundskeeper invited us in for dinner, since we were lost and everything.

I think Haku lived with the groundskeeper. I mean Kohaku. -3/5

Dear Diary:

We had to dissect pigs again. I couldn't stand to be in the room after the teacher brought out the little plastic bags with those poor, unborn animals in them. The teacher let me do the paperwork for the dissection instead—that is, locating the organs and things in nice, neat little diagrams.

I still felt bad for the pigs, though. -3/6

Dear Diary:

Today was my day off. I'm so happy to have gotten a day to do some shopping! The lady in a shop in Harajuku let me have this really pretty necklace. It has a dragon on it. I think she was waiting for me to find her shop.

It was kismet.

I'm kidding. Destiny doesn't really exist, as far as I'm concerned. If everyone HAD to do something, then life would lose its meaning. Life is about making choices yourself, not following some path that was picked out for you long ago.

But if it did exist, that would be it. -3/7

Dear Diary:

You'd think they'd have finished with dissection already. But apparently dissecting pigs isn't enough to satisfy the sadists in class. So today, the biology teacher made us dissect cats.

Well, I got out of it, but I still had to sit there while they cut open those poor unborn kittens…I'm not going to go to class again if they start dissecting anything else.

I had a weird dream again. It's really fuzzy, but I think there was something in there about a dragon. Crazy, huh? -3/9

Dear Diary:

My head hurts. I stayed home from school today because I threw up right after I ate breakfast. My stomach is playing havoc with my throat. It's amazing I actually have anything left to retch out.

It all started yesterday. I was staring out the window again, and that silvery thing just _rocketed_ toward me. I saw these really pretty bluish eyes almost crash into the glass, and then it just disappeared.

And then my head started hurting.

I recognized it. I don't know how, but I did. Something about that dragon, whether it was real or just a hallucination, called up some weird memories.

I'm not sure I can talk about them yet. I'm still trying to figure out if they're even real. This is scary. I think I'm going to bed now. Good night. -3/11

X

a/n: wow. next-day updating, eh? sry about the shortness. im not sure if ill do another chapter of journal entries or if ill just jump right back into the 3rd person-pov. enjoy, mes amis.

-raven, your friendly neptunian maniac


	4. His GreenBlue Eyes

_:Dream 6:_

Chihiro stared out the window, searching for the flash of silver that had followed her for weeks. So far, nothing. She didn't bother to look up when the sound of footsteps made itself known to her. It was probably nothing.

Suddenly, an icy hand touched her shoulder. She jumped and turned to face its owner, shock dancing across her eyes.

"Chihiro!" murmured the boy standing over her. "It's you, isn't it?"

_Haku!_ Cried Chihiro's subconscious. Her mind buried the thought before it could be acknowledged, and Chihiro only smiled nervously at the boy.

"Er, yes, I'm Chihiro," she muttered, eyes downcast. "I'm sorry. I don't think we've met before."

The boy's warm smile faltered. Something flashed in his green-blue eyes. Chihiro watched as his posture wavered, shoulders slumping slightly. And something inside of her told her that she knew the boy, but her mind refused to acknowledge it.

"My name is Kohaku," he murmured, holding her gaze with an intensity she had never seen before….or had she? "I've known you since you were very small."

A memory sparked in Chihiro's heart. It struggled to the surface and was washed over by the tide of repression.

The boy sat down next to her, oblivious to the stares of the other students and the teacher. Class had started half an hour ago, yet here this Kohaku was, conversing with her as if the two were on a park bench.

"Excuse me, young man," growled the teacher, a murderous look in her eyes, "but might I ask WHY you've disrupted my class?"

"I'm very sorry, sensei," the boy called Kohaku murmured in reply, "but there is something very urgent Chihiro must attend to. An emergency, if you will. Would it be too much to ask for Chihiro to leave the classroom for a moment with me?"

The teacher, mouth agape, nodded slowly. The boy called Kohaku gently took hold of Chihiro's arm and led her out of the classroom. She barely had time to gather her things; he wasn't stopping for _anything_.

The moment they reached the hall, Kohaku took off at a run. Chihiro found herself dragged along, nearly flying down the corridor. Classrooms flashed by, the chatter of students and teachers torn away from Chihiro's ears before she ever really heard it.

"Where are we—" she started, but the words died in her throat. They were moving too fast; she couldn't breathe.

_Just a little farther _came a voice in her mind. _Don't look down._

And of course, she looked down. There was nothing beneath her feet. Kohaku pulled her along on nothing but air, skirting treetops and ricocheting off of walls to gain more speed. If Chihiro could've gotten the air, she would have screamed.

But even in her terror, a small memory wakened deep within her. Flying through a crowd of people to escape…something. She remembered the feeling of weightlessness, the strong hold on her hand. Chihiro glanced at Kohaku through her tears and saw for the first time someone that she'd known long ago.

"Ko—ha—ku?" she mouthed, no sound reaching her lips.

And then they were falling. Weightless. Chihiro's blurred eyes beheld the ground fast approaching, and her heart jumped into her throat. Then she saw the river, the green-grey water storming toward the unseen ocean. Closer, until she could see the fish scattering from her shadow.

_Close your eyes._

And the water rose up to meet them.


End file.
